Now THIS is a problem
by Vitriolic Lightning
Summary: On a case, Valkyrie gets kidnapped by an evil mage. When the gang finally tracks her down, they may have more problems than when she was missing.
1. Blackwood

**_I decided to make this one it's own story, sense I seem to actually be finishing it.  
><em>**

**_Enjoy._**

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><em>In this fateful hour,<em>

_All heaven with it's power._

_The sun with it's brightness,_

_The snow with it's whiteness,_

_The fire with all the strength it hath._

_The lightning with it's rapid wrath,_

_The winds with their swiftness,_

_The sea with it's deepness,_

_The rocks with their steepness,_

_The earth with it's starkness,_

_All these I place between myself,_

_And the powers of darkness!_

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>Snow Blackwood was a level five blackmaster, the leading researcher of major curses, a professional summoner of minor demons, and a man with a particular gift for the art of voodoo. He was currently teaching Magical Defense Tactics at the University of Sorcerers in Dublin, Ireland, with a side job as a consultant of the magical arts for the Irish Sanctuary's few detectives.<p>He was also a very bad man.<p>

Valkyrie could see him from her vantage point atop the University's gymnasium, peering through the skylight. His long, brown hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and his sharp features and dark eyes looked drawn and haggard. The long, black cloak he wore trailed to the floor in a dramatic, sweeping wave that put an air of mystery about him that he wouldn't normally posses, and looked strange and out of place in the modern day gym.

"The blackmasters, you see, were the original practitioners of the dark arts," Whispered Skulduggery, crouched down besides her and peering at the odd seen below them. "They are the ones that gave magic a bad name, with all the demon summoning and curses. They rely mostly on objects and talismans to focus their magic, and a particular favorite of theirs over the last couple hundred years is using circles and pentagrams to halt magical energy, as is displayed by our good friend, Mr. Blackwood."

Blackwood did, indeed, have both a pentagram and a circle laid out on the floor, three of them, in fact, overlapping each other, with a lot more than that. There were candles of varying height, the only source of light in the shadowy room, shards of glass and seashells hanging suspended from the ceiling, strange objects that Valkyrie didn't even recognize, all arranged in complicated patterns barely detectable to the eye.

"This is a major summoning circle, probably used to call up demonic demigods and archangels, things like that." Skulduggery cocked his skull at an angle that Valkyrie took to be confused, and studied the complicated assortment of magic laid out on the gym floor. "All that other stuff could be used to adapt the circle to other things, fallen angles and Fea Queens, maybe the Leanansidhe, if you had enough energy to power it. I really don't know enough about summoning to be shore."

Valkyrie stared at him in astonishment. "Are you serious? Fallen angles? Demigods? Fairy Queens? Are those things even real?"

Skulduggery looked at her with an alarming amount of seriousness. "You'd be surprised. Summoning things like that from other worlds and pocket dimensions was outlawed long ago, and I'm not even shore if those things are still around, after the Faceless Ones started tearing through the walls of reality and killing off worlds, but apparently Blackwood managed to dig up the oh so famous 'How To' books from some long forgotten corner of the globe. "

Indeed, Blackwood carried an open, leather bound book in his hands, which he was consulting every couple of moments after looking at his twisted creation of dark magic and evil purposes.

"Could he actually summon a Faceless One with that?" Valkyrie asked nervously. She didn't fancy trying to fight one if Blackwood managed to summon it before they could stop him.

"I don't see why he would; he hasn't ever shown an interest in the Dark Gods, much less the level of fanaticism needed to actually WANT them here." Skulduggery replied quietly, thoughtfully.

"But could he, if he did want to?" Valkyrie asked.

"I don't think he'll try, but he certainly could."

Valkyrie stared at him. "I think we should go stop him now."

Skulduggery shook his head, his attention still on the room below. "No, we have to wait until he brings out Rave, or we may never find him."

"What makes you think he'll bring Rave here?" Valkyrie asked.

Skulduggery lowered his voice as some commotion at the doors to the gym took Blackwood's attention from his circle. "The Blackmasters were also famous for their practice of using human sacrifice to power their spells. They were unusually common in the ancient Aztec communities. They used to-"

He was abruptly cut off as Valkyrie slammed her hand over his mouth and hissed "Shhhhhh!" The commotion at the door resolved itself into six figures carrying something between them. A man. They were carrying a limp, bloody man between them, evening out the weigh, although he couldn't have weighed much with how terribly thin he was. Valkyrie had seen a picture of him when they first took on this case.

Shabble Rave. He was a third year student at the University, and most of his classes were in "Professor" Blackwood's class, as the Director of the school had told them. He was a bright boy, very promising talent, his other teachers informed them, when questioned. His picture showed a thin, awkward man of average height, all elbows and knees. Long, carrot red hair and wire frame glasses almost covered his bright, intelligent eyes, and his smile was shy, but nice. In the picture, he had been warring a plane T-shirt with a picture of a T-rex chasing a running figure with the words "Exercise; A little motivation required." on the front.

All in all, Valkyrie had thought at the time, he looked like a nerd.

The figures were all cloaked and hooded, their identities unknown. They carried Rave to the center of the gym, carefully avoiding the magical setup, and placed him on the ground. His hair was dirty and unwashed, his chest was bare, and his feet were shoeless, his only clothes were a dirty pair of jeans, ripped and tattered. He was unconscious.

An unexpected well of pity came from Valkyrie, for the poor sorcerer who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and didn't deserve any of this. She ignored it and focused on the problem at hand.

Blackwood had pulled a paint brush and a small carving knife out of the folds and pockets of his robe, and had opened a cut on his own wrist to dip the paint brush into and use to paint squiggly symbols on the chest of Shabble Rave, which began to writhe and worm around on the poor man's skin. His eyes trembled below his eyelids, and a small whimper escaped his lips, but he remained unconscious.

Blackwood stepped back and gestured to one of the cloaked figures, Valkyrie thought this one was a woman, and she stepped forward and raised her arms, and with barely a tremble in the air, Rave rose off the ground and began to float toward the elaborate setup of magical artifacts.

Skulduggery cursed and stood out of his crouch. "Those are not symbols of sacrifice." He said as he bent down and pulled Valkyrie to her feet. "Those are symbols of possession!"

He raised his hand and snapped his palm, and a blast of air took out the skylight in an explosion of glass and noise. He stepped up to the edge and dropped down, slowing his fall with air, and landed in the middle of the group of cloaked figures, all ready moving to take them out with a series of blinding jabs and his revolver aimed to disable with shots to the legs and arms.

Valkyrie was two seconds behind, landing next to Blackwood with shadows curling around her fist and a ball of fire in her other hand, ready for anything. Blackwood turned to face her, his features distorted with rage. He reached in his cloak's pocket and drew out. . . .

A Barbie doll. He reached into his coat and brought out a dark haired, dressed in pink, a lipstick smile painted on, honest to god, Barbie doll. Suddenly, Valkyrie felt like laughing at the absurdity of the situation.

"What do you plan on doing with that?" Valkyrie asked skeptically.

Blackwood smiled, and Valkyrie lost some of her confidence. He bent down and picked up a piece of fallen glass near his foot. A dark drop of blood stained it's clear surface. Valkyrie glanced down at her fist, for the first time noticing a small sliver of a cut, blood oozing out. He brought the glass shard to the face of the Barbie and carefully wiped the spot of blood onto the plastic cheek of the doll. He gripped the doll tightly in his fist, his fingers overlapping it's arms, and, with his eyes on Valkyrie, he whispered ancient words of magic. "Ubriacha, ubrius, ubrium,"

An aurora of magic suddenly sprang up around the doll, and Valkyrie felt the effects of the spell imidetly. Her arms snapped down to her sides, and the flame went out and the shadows thinned and disappeared. Too late, she remembered Blackwood's skill with voodoo. She could almost feel his thick fingers wrap around her, binding her arms to her sides. She struggled uselessly, tried to call out, saw Blackwood curl a finger around the dolls mouth as her lips sealed themselves shut, and she struggled all the harder.

Blackwood turned to Skulduggery, who was grappling with the last man standing, besides the woman holding Rave suspended in thin air above the circle, trying to concentrate so she wouldn't drop the man onto their project.

"Dead Man!" Blackwood called out. Skulduggery turned to him as soon as his opponent clasped into a heap on the floor, unconscious. "Lay down you weapon and surrender, or your partner won't live to see tomorrow."

To emphasize his point, Blackwood gave the doll a tight squeeze and raised his arm up. Valkyrie felt herself rise above the floor, and her struggles became frantic as pressure spread across her chest, painfully tight and restricting her breathing. A whimper of pain came from the back of her throat, and her back arched, trying to free herself from the invisible hand that held her tight. Blackness spread across her vision, and her eyes fluttered.

She was caught like a rat in a trap.

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><p><strong>Read and review.<strong>


	2. Taken

**Well, I'm on a roll this week! Thank god for vacations!**

**Enjoy.**

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><p>"You've lost, Blackwood. Your accomplices are down, your elemental friend is about to drop Rave on the floor, your only hope is a hostage, and we aren't leaving here without the boy." Skulduggery's voice was commanding, reasonable, and not nearly as bad as he could have been, under the circumstances. His gun had pointed it's self at Blackwood's forehead.<p>

The female sorceress was obviously struggling to hold Rave in midair, sweat beaded on her brow, and he had stopped his forward motion. Her arms were raised, but her hands trembled under invisible strain. All of her concentration was focused on just keeping Rave from hitting the many candles and shards of glass suspended around him. It wouldn't be long before his limp body dropped to the ground.

Valkyrie was struggling uselessly against the invisible hand that held her, to no avail. She could barely breathe, and she was cursing herself for not stopping Blackwood before he could cast his deadly enchantment.

Blackwood's beady eyes darted around the room, back and forth, searching for a way out. He was a man backed into a corner, and men in corners got desperate.

His eyes finally found their way back to the skeleton. He licked his lips nervously, but his voice was strong and commanding. "You don't understand, Detective. You're not leaving here at all. Now put down the gun, before Miss. Cain suffocates."

Skulduggery observed him for a moment, hardly glancing at Valkyrie, and then slowly, so, so, slowly, he bent down and carefully placed the gun on the hard floor of the gym. The loud clink of metal on wood made Blackwood flinch, but he regained his composure quickly.

"There, you see? No gun, no tricks." He said as he straightened, keeping his hands up and his voice soothing and low, like he was talking to a frightened animal. "Now loosen up a little. Let my partner go. Just you and me. One on one. Nobody else has to get hurt here." He took a step forward.

"Don't move!" Blackwood shouted. He took a step towards Valkyrie, and his hand tightened on the voodoo Barbie; Valkyrie's back arched as the last of her air was forced from her lungs.

There was pain, tightness in her chest. She stopped struggling and fell limp, an occasional twitch from her foot her only movement. Darkness threatened around her vision. It was odd, a dark haired and semi-concise girl floating a few feet above the ground.

Skulduggery froze. "Blackwood, put the girl down." He said, and now his voice was sharp and loud.

"Don't tell me what to do!" The blackmaster shouted.

"Blackwood!" Skulduggery yelled.

Blackwood flinched.

"Snow Blackwood!"He called out again. "You are under arrest, by order of the Sanctuary, for kidnapping, resisting arrest, orchestrating and attempting a summoning of the sixth level, threatening an official sanctuary representative, annoying me, and being an all around general nuisance; you have the right to not much at all. . . ."

He wasn't even finished speaking when he moved. His hand snapped out and shot a blast of air at the elemental keeping Rave aloft, and as her feet flew out from under her, Rave crashed to the ground, bringing candles and glass and other articles needed for the summoning with him. An unseen pressure buildup of magic was suddenly released harmlessly into the air, something so subtle and complex you didn't realize it was there until it was gone.

Skulduggery was quick and dove for his gun, he came up shooting.

Blackwood dropped the doll and made a mad dive dodging bullets for the now unconscious Valkyrie, who had fallen in a heap the moment the doll touched the ground. Too late, Skulduggery saw the chalk pentagram, hugely uncomplex compared to the one Rave was to be placed in, etched onto the floor around her, too far away to be of any use to Blackwood before.

It was almost invisible in the half light of the candles, and had obviously been placed there before they arrived, and it was just bad luck, (or good, depending on your point of view,) that Valkyrie had landed in it.

Blackwood stopped a foot away from Valkyrie, rolled, and came to a stop lying next to her. He gave Skulduggery a vicious smile as he ran towards them, trying to stop him before he did something unfortunate.

Both Valkyrie and Blackwood fit easily into to the confines of the pentagram, so when the Blackmaster reached out a hand to touch the outline of the circle, the dark red light that burst from the lines and curves didn't touch them, and they were unharmed when the red light grew too bright to look at.

With a burst of senseless noise and the smell of brimstone, they disappeared in a flash of light, and Skulduggery was thrown back with the force of an explosion.

And then all was silent.

The candles had gone out, and the only light came from the moon and stars' shining through the broken glass of the ceiling, but it was enough to see the burnt outline of the pentagram that was once chalked into the floor, and the noticeable absence of a criminal and a teenage girl.

Skulduggery stood up slowly and looked at the remains of the pentagram seemingly without emotion. He walked over to it with professional detachment and examined it closer. The silence of the night was unnerving.

Finally, Skulduggery turned away and walked towards to door with slow, unhurried movement. He stopped at the door and didn't move. His hands curled into fists.

"Dimmit!" He suddenly shouted. His foot lashed out and kicked the door with a violence and speed that surprised even him. He stood there for a moment, and he knew if he still had lungs, his breath would be uneven and ragged with emotion. He stood there until he could make his fingers relax and his mind stop racing. His arm reached out and touched the door knob, but he paused.

Skulduggery whirled around, his gun already out, and with an explosion of noise and gunfire the female elemental who had been trying to escape out another door while nobody was looking was blasted in the back with several rounds from his gun.

No warning shots or hits to the arm and legs for this one. She let out a soft sound, like air escaping from a tire, and this nameless, faceless foe fell to the ground, dead. Blood spread quickly from her still warm corpse in a sickly puddle around her, and it trickled out of her mouth, pooling around her face and reflecting her sightless eyes.

Finally, Skulduggery's gun was silent as his finger stopped clicking uselessly at the trigger, all his rounds having been spent on the woman. He stood there for a moment, a manikin for all he moved. His hand did not shake, and his skull was impassive.

Then a whisper, just a whisper, carried on the wind.

"For Valkyrie."

At last, he lowered the arm holding the still smoking gun, turned without a word, and left the dead woman through the door into the cold night air.

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><p><strong>What did you think? I hope I actually end up finishing this one.<strong>

**Read and review.**


	3. The Daemon

**Enjoy.**

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><p>Valkyrie woke up with a pain in her head and a crook in her neck. She blinked her eyes open and moaned. Her mussels were horribly stiff. A gag muffled any sound she made, and her arms were wrenched behind her back at a painful angle. Her nose was pressed against a wall and her legs were duct taped together.<p>

The floor was hard and concrete, and it was too dark to see anything, but she got the sense that she was in a big room, maybe a warehouse, or maybe she was still in the gym. Valkyrie tried to wriggle around a bit, but to no effect. Her bindings held.

"Feugo. Venteferro. Mavra. Amoracchius."

The voice came from somewhere behind her, just a whisper in the darkened room. Valkyrie squirmed and tried to turn herself over; she made it onto her back, but could turn no more. Her handcuffs were chained to the wall.

"Domine. Lava. Quod. Est sordium."

The handcuffs dug painfully into her back, but Valkyrie ignored the unpleasant sensation and turned her head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the owner of the voice. It was almost too dark to see, but somehow she managed.

"Vente! Venteferro! Vento! Vento servitas! Ventas, vento servitas!"

Blackwood was sitting, cross legged, on the floor about ten feet away. He still wore a robe, but the hood was pulled up, and Valkyrie thought she could see a couple of bullet holes at the very edge, courtesy of Skulduggery, no doubt.

"Ventas, vento, servitas! Ventas, vento, servitas! Ventas servitas -"

He had a pentagram drawn in chalk on the floor, this one about the size of a hula hoop, and he sat just outside the confines of it. Slowly, as his voice gained volume, glowing, orange smoke spiraled up in a lazy circle from the center.

"Vento servitas, vento ventas, servitas vento!"

The sulferus smoke was so thick now, Valkyrie couldn't see through it. What was odd though, was that the spectral smoke didn't pass the circumference of the pentagram. It was like a glass tube had been dropped over it.

Blackwood's voice fell silent, and Valkyrie's eyes turned back to him. He slumped down a little, and his face was covered in sheen of sweat. He looked exhausted.

Something was in the circle. Through the smoke, she could see it move. Bare glimpses of it appeared. Scales. Claws. A wing. Two, no, four black eyes blinked at Blackwood through the smoke and haze, the only still things in a world of deception and illusion.

Blackwood began to chant again. "Deus. Considero me culpa in nomine. . . ."

The effect on the creature in the pentagram was imitate. It let out a piercing wail, and the eyes began to bob up and down restlessly, as if searching for a way out of its prison. Blackwood didn't stop, if anything, his voice gained speed and volume.

". . . .dono mihi. . . .persessum satisfacti. Pulveribus pulverem pulveribus fieri. . . .cineribus cineram fieri terrae terram fieri!"

He fell silent, and after a while, so did the wailing of the creature in the pentagram. Blackwood swayed a little, but didn't fall.

Valkyrie was laying down, all her ackes and pains forgotten, with wide eyes.

"Grimalkin." Blackwood said. "Grimalkin." He said again, and Valkyrie realized he was calling the creature's name. "Grimalkin!" The third time, the eyes floating in the smoke seemed to flinch, as if Blackwood had physically struck him. Blackwood reached into his robes and pulled out a photograph.

"I compel you, Grimalkin, with your true name, to do my bidding." Blackwood said.

The creature answered, and Valkyrie shuddered. No human could ever make words sound so guttural. No human could make your ears bleed just by putting anger in it's voice. No human could sound so beastly.

"Mortal man of flesssh, by your own magic'sss lawssss you cannot take my will any more than you have by sssomoning me here today."

Blackwood visibly trembled, such was the power in the creature's voice, and it was several minutes before he could speak, but when he did, his voice did not waver, and he held his head high.

"I do not intend to make you do anything more with your name," Blackwood began, "I intend to make a deal with you."

"What kind of deal?" Hissed Grimalkin.

Blackwood smiled. "A simple one, as these things go. You take ten, maybe fifteen minuets out of your busy schedule to kill someone for me, and I'll let you go."

Grimalkin laughed, and Valkyrie felt sick to her stomach. "You think you can hold me, mortal man? If you have nothing more to trade for my sssservices, other than freedom I already have, then you had better ssssend me back."

Blackwood seemed almost confident. "I can keep you here as long as I want. With your name, I can make you stay here, in this world. With this circle, I can make you stay in this room, forever, if I want."

Grimalkin did not seem happy about the prospect. It's four cat eyes bobbed up and down, and the smoke twisted and swirled as it moved around. A long, unstopped growl that was almost a purr emitted from it's throat.

"I read about you, you see. You are unusual, for a demon. You don't like to be kept waiting, even though you have all the time in this world, and the next."

Grimalkin hissed.

"So what is it going to be? Get stuck with me for the next few days until I collapse from exhaustion and my magic no longer holds you here, in which case you lose more time in your world, or-" Blackwood smiled, "You can do me this one little favor, and I'll send you on your marry little way, back to torturing or plundering, or whatever you do with your spare time."

Grimalkin was silent for a long time, and his burning black eyes never left Blackwood. When he finally spoke, Blackwood trembled, and his face fell forward into his hands. The photograph dropped from his fingers.

"I agree to thessse termsss, mortal man." At this, a mouth floated into view through the smoke, grinning a terrible grin with sharp teeth and fangs.

"But know thisss, the next time I am sssummoned," Blackwood whined in the back of his throat.

"And I will be ssssummoned again, make no misssstake," Valkyrie trembled, and flinched, and the demon's verbal assault wasn't even directed at her.

"I will kill you." Blackwood began rocking back and forth, as if Grimalkin's mere voice were knives through his mind. Valkyrie felt sorry for him, and he was the one that kidnapped her.

"Who do you want dead, mortal man?" Grimalkin asked.

Blackwood didn't answer.

Grimalkin's eyes drifted to floor level, focused on something Valkyrie couldn't see.

"Issss thissss the man?" It asked.

Blackwood didn't answer for a moment, then, with a peek through his fingers, he spoke in a horse whisper. "Yes."

The eyes bobbed up and down once, as if nodding, and Grimalkin said, "Then release me, mortal man, and I will kill him, and everyone with him."

Blackwood kept his face buried in his lap, but stretched a trembling hand out and smudged the line of the pentagram slightly.

The demon's sharp toothed smile drifted through the smoke again, not in the same place it was last time, and his eyes floated up, higher than any man could stand, ten or twelve feet above the ground. The smoke began to slip out the crack in the pentagram, draining out of It's prison. It rushed past Blackwood towards the other side of the room, never fully revealing the demon within. The eyes were the last to go, and they never removed their gaze from the cowering Blackwood.

With a howl, the smoke rushed for some door Valkyrie couldn't see in her position, and disappeared into the night.

Neither Valkyrie nor Blackwood moved for several minuets, Valkyrie still being in shock. There was a demon on the loose. This was bad, she knew, and the poor soul Blackwood sent it to kill didn't have a chance.

Then, Blackwood began to laugh.

A deep felt, high pitched, slightly hysterical laugh. His face was still buried in his hands, and to Valkyrie, he was just a shape in the gloom that trembled and shook as the mad laughter continued. Then, Blackwood raised his head, still laughing, and through back his hood. His face was pale, and he looked like he had aged twenty years in ten minuets, but still he laughed.

"I did it!" He giggled to himself, "I really did it!"

He stood on shaky legs, and his laughter died, but when he turned to Valkyrie, the mirth was still on his face. "You hear that, Miss Cain? I summoned a demon and didn't die!" He giggled to himself again, and Valkyrie noticed his eyes were wide, and his pupils were dilated.

He looked at the ceiling and said, "You hear that Johnny? I did what you said I couldn't do!" Now his eyes burned with madness, and he raised his fist and shook it at the ceiling. "I raised a demon and you couldn't! So all I have to say to you is Ha! Ha, ha ,ha! Ha! Ha. Ha. Ha." At this, he dissolved into mad laughter again.

"He's stark raven mad!" Valkyrie thought as she stared at the man before her.

Blackwood's laughter died off again, and he turned back to Valkyrie. With a sigh, he walked up to her, bending down to pick up the photograph he dropped earlier on the way, which must have been what Grimalkin was looking at when he asked who Blackwood wanted dead.

"Well, back to work. There will be plenty of time for gloating after I'm done."He walked over to Valkyrie, who was getting very worried at this point, and bent down to her level. She glared at him defiantly.

"Now, now." He patted her cheek affectionately. "There is no reason to be that way."

Blackwood reached into his robe pocket and drew out a syringe, filled with a clear liquid. "I'm terribly afraid that you cant be conshis for this next part." Valkyrie's eyes widened, and she began to struggle uselessly as Blackwood carefully inserted the needle into her arm and injected the liquid into her system.

She jerked once, tried to say something around her gag, and relaxed, her vision already going dark. Blackwood's features swam and moved as he held up the photograph for Valkyrie to see. His voice, when he spoke, was warped, and sounded like it came from far away.

"Be it one way or another, you will never see your friend again."

Darkness clouded her vision, but she could still make out the image of Skulduggery, leaning against a brick wall, with his bonny face turned towards her and his hat low on his brow. Valkyrie had taken that picture no more than two weeks ago, and she had kept it in her wallet ever sense.

Skulduggery. Her stomach gave a painful lurch. She struggled to think. He might die. The thought made something twist, inside her, right in her chest. She had to stay awake. For him, she had to warn him. For him. She had to stay awake. She had to. . . . .

Valkyrie fell into unconsciousness.

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	4. China

"The first one is simple enough, a basic teleportation circle. You just have to get a good physic down here to tell you where it goes. Its this other one that interests me." China said as her heels clicked across the floor of the gym.

"I brought you down here to open the portal, not to tell me what it is. I know what it is."

"Yes," China said, proceeding ahead of Skulduggery to Blackwood's summoning circle. "But that is a very shoddy circle, and if I try to activate it, there is a good chance I will disintegrate along with it, and well that might make your day, it will also ruin my new dress. I suspect he made it that way purposely, so it would only hold up once and no one could follow him after he used it. Of course, I could be over estimating his ability. He could just be a very stupid man who is very bad with circles."

Skulduggery looked around and beckoned to the Public Relations Officer waiting off to the side for them to finish so he could haul off the evidence before the mortals got there.

"Go to this address," Skulduggery handed the man a slip of paper. "And bring me Finbar Wrong. He'll probably know your coming. And for God's sake, be quick about it."

"Sir!" The man said indigently. "I am not a chauffeur! I am a part of an elite organization most of the world is blind to! I am the first line of defense against exposure to the mortal world! I am a mange and a sorcerer, and I will not be treated with such-"

"Oh, just go, you over righteous little man!" China barked at him, turning away from her examination briefly to glare at him. "The sooner you fetch him, the sooner you can go back to your minimum wage job as a magical janitor."

"Excuse me, Miss! i think I deserve a little more-" Her appearance suddenly registered on his face, and his jaw dropped, face slack and eyes bugging out wide.

China sighed, annoyed. "Yes, yes, I know. I'm beautiful. Now go!"

'Bu..but..I...yes, yes ma'am!" He seemed to fumble with what to do for a second, then settled for giving a clumsy salute and marching off, giving the occasional glance back that he probably thought no one noticed.

"Your in a lovely mood this morning." Skulduggery noted dryly.

"This night."

"Sorry?"

"This night. It's still dark out, Skulduggery, remember? You got me out of bed at three in the morning to come play C.S.I. Dublin with you. Does this ring any bells?"

"Really? Well, I can't bring myself to regret it."

China sighed, her annoyance fading as suddenly as it had come. She just looked tired now. This didn't happen to her. China Sorrows didn't go through mood swings. She was not this emotional. "I know." she said, hating herself for being understanding. "You hate me now. It's ok. I'm Ok with that. You can hate me, you can have that, at least. I would hate me, too, were I to somehow to be you."

Skulduggery remained silent. China waited for him to speak. To yell. To shout. To accuse. To threaten. He didn't.

China nodded. "It's fine. You don't have to talk to me anymore. You don't want me here. You didn't want to call me here. But you had to, for Valkyrie's sake. That is all right. But I'm here, and I will tell all I can as I pick at the secrets in this spell."

Silence for a moment, and then Skulduggery's phone rang, breaking the tension, and he turned away to answer it.

China turned to the items hanging in midair by some mysterious force, glanced at Skulduggery out of the corner of her eye, then went directly for a small glass bubble, gently pulling it free from the elliptical orbit holding it in space. With a fugitive glance around, she placed to tip of one finger to the globe, a small purple symbol flaring to life where the glass touched her skin, and waited, breath held.

A dull blue glow grew to life in the confines of the little glass ball, and China's eyes widened.

"Find anything?" Skulduggery barked, walking up behind her.

China turned. "No." She sighed. "As far as I can tell, this was meant to be a different variation of summoning a Faceless One and giving it a vessel. Directly bring them into the vessel through the portal."

Skulduggery's head tilted, posture stiff. "I suspected something of the sort." He nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Sorrows. Your input has been invaluable." He turned and began walking.

China couldn't watch him go so cold. "Skulduggery-"

He stopped. "Yes, Miss Sorrows?"

She hesitated. "I- I really am sorry, Skul."

He didn't turn. His voice sounded tired. "Your not sorry you did it, China. Not really." He began walking again. "Your sorry I found out."

The door slammed and echoed in the sudden silence of the gym, and China was left standing alone in the dark and the cold.

She pulled her closed fist out of her pocket and looked at it. Her fingers trembled, jerked, and snapped open with a sickening crunch. The little blue orb glowed innocently in the center of her palm, surrounded by her now black and frostbitten fingers. Her breath whooshed out in a sudden exhale, and ere eyes closed slowly.

"Valkyrie, dear child, for your sake as well as mine, I hope this doesn't mean what I think it does."


	5. Psychic

The Bentley pulled up to the Roarhaven Sanctuary, and Skulduggery got out and slammed the door behind him. The air was crisp and cold, the moon still up and the night still out. Tipstaff waited for him in the foyer.

"Elder Bespoke awaits you in the medical bay. He has instructed me to bring you there when you arrived"

Skulduggery ignored him and blew right past, Tipstaff huffing and puffing as he tried to keep up with the skeleton's stride.

"Where is he?" He asked when he arrived. Fletcher was there, standing next to Ghastly, and he was the one who answered. "Rave is in there," He gestured to one of the doors lining the hallway. "He hasn't had anything useful to say so far, though. We already questioned him. All he can tell us is that he was held in a warehouse."

Skulduggery paused. "What are you doing here?"

He looked a little sheepish. "I asked Ghastly to call me if there was anything you guys needed help with."

Skulduggery's head tilted. He turned to Ghastly.

Ghastly shrugged and grinned. "Don't tell me you didn't miss his smiling face."

Skulduggery grumbled under his breath.

Ravel came shuffling in at that point, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and yawing. "Have we found her yet?"

Everybody stared. Nobody answered. Ravel blinked at them. "What?" Clarabelle walked out of the room Rave was in, holding a clipboard, and humming under her breath. She looked up and stopped, staring at the Grand Mange. A smile spread across her face. "Bunnie!" She cried, pointing.

Ravel looked down at his feet. He looked back up and scowled and glared at the rest of them. "These are official Elder slippers, for your information, so you can stop smiling. Ghastly, you get a pair, too, so stop snorting."

"They are very. . . . pink." Fletcher pointed out.

"Real men aren't afraid to ware pink."

"They are pink Bunnie slippers."

"Is this really the time to comment on my foot ware?" He complained. Ghastly's phone rang, and he stepped out to answerer it, still chuckling under his breath.

Tipstaff glared at Fletcher. "The Grand Mange is to be respected in all things, young insolent youth! What are you even doing here? Your not an employee."

"No, but you are." Fletcher said wisely.

"What dose that have to do with anything?' He asked.

"Everything has to do with anything." Fletcher smiled and nodded.

"What?" Tipstaff asked, confused.

"What what?" Fletcher looked at him.

A moment went by. "Never mind."

Ghastly walked back in, phone in hand. "It's for you." He passed it off to Skulduggery. Skulduggery took it and held it to his skull, he listened for several moments. He nodded. "I'll be there." The phone snapped shut and was returned to Ghastly.

"Fletcher, have you ever been to the University?"

"Uhhh...well, not in the place you might be thinking of-"

Skulduggery sighed impatiently. "Can you take me there or not?"

"Yes, but-"

"Do it."

"OK." Fletcher said uncertainly. Skulduggery placed a hand on his shoulder, and the Sanctuary dissolved around them to be replaced by...

"Fletcher. Why are we in the Laddies changing room?"

Fletcher blushed a little. "It's the only part of this place I bothered to remember. Everything else had too much learning."

Skulduggery stared at him a long moment. Fletcher looked uncomfortable. "Are we going to be leaving soon?" He asked, gesturing to the door. Skulduggery stared at him some more, then turned and began walking out to the gym, a somewhat relived Fletcher trailing behind.

China was still there. She didn't look up as they walked in. The Public Relations Officer was standing by her side, trailing after her with puppy dog eyes. Finbar was in the middle of the teleportation circle, both fingers stuck in his ears and his eyes screwed shut.

"What is he doing?" Fletcher whispered to Skulduggery as they approached.

"LALALALALALALA!" Finbar began shouting.

"Something clever." Skulduggery shouted, stopping just outside of the circle, waiting.

Finbar's eyes snapped open, his pupils wide, his shouting abruptly cut off. He was shuddering violently. "I can't do it, man."

"Can't do what?" Fletcher asked, looking between the two of them with some confusion.

"Finbar," Skulduggery said, kneeling down to eye level with the trembling man. "Please. Valkyrie needs this. Valkyrie needs you to do this."

"I haven't had one vision sense last Christmas. I tried, Skulman. I can't see her. I can't see where she is. I can't see the thread that connects this circle to where it lets out." He closed his eyes and sagged. "I can't see."

"You can do it, Finbar." Skulduggery said. "I've seen you pinpoint a fly a continent away. You can do it. For Valkyrie. Remember Valkyrie? She's your friend. You can help us save her."

Finbar remained silent for so long, skinny shoulders hunched in on himself. Despair filled the atmosphere.

Skulduggery's head dropped into his hands. A another long moment of silence dragged by. "Please." He said. "Please try."

Finbar's eyes opened slowly, and he blinked at them, then he gave a long sigh. "I'll try. A street name. I should be able to do that, at least" He closed his eyes and held out his hands, fingers splayed and searching through the air. It took a moment, but then they froze and his face screwed up in pain.

"It hurts."

"I know, Finbar. Look harder. Find her."

Finbar's neck twitched. His eyelids fluttered.

"South...she is south, to the left. No...no..to the right."

"I need you to be specific, Finbar. Look just a little bit harder."

Finbar's head snapped back and his eyes opened wide and staring, the whites running blood red. A final shudder ran through his body, and he was still.

A moment went by. Then two. "Finbar." Skulduggery said. No reaction. "Finbar." He snapped his fingers in front of his eyes. The man remained still. Then his head napped around and his sightless eyes fixed on them, a maniac smile on his face.

Skulduggery slapped him. It was shocking, and sudden, and violent. Finbar's head rocked back on impact, and his skull rolled back around until his bloody eyes focused on them again. He smiled. "Horrible things will happen." He said.

"Where is this circle designed to take people?" Skulduggery demanded.

Finbar's smile grew. "A warehouse on Westside Road. You can't miss it. It's the one with a magical storm cloud hovering over it." His eyes narrowed. "You won't make it though. Your going to die first."

Skulduggery nodded. "I thought so."

"You will parish horribly."

"Of course."

"Valkyrie Cain will be tortured and brutishly murdered."

"It was bound to happen eventually."

"A daemon from another dementon will tear your apart."

"I'd be insulted if it didn't."

"Your car is going to be_ totaled_."

Skulduggery froze. "**You _bastard_!**" He shouted. His gun whipped out and aimed itself at Finbar's head. "You have ten seconds to un-posses that physic before I kill you and him both!"

The thing inside Finbar's body rolled Finbar's eyes. "No need for threats." It complained. "Like I want to be a bloody meat bag anyways." It's eyes rolled back in it's head, and Finbar's body shook and convulsed, as red smoke rose out of him and dissipated into thin air. Finbar was left slumped on the floor, very much unconscious.

A shocked silence went by.

"What," Fletcher asked. "Was THAT?"

"No idea." Skulduggery said, tucking his gun away. "Something unpleasant, probably. It possessed him. That happens to physics."

Fletcher blinked at him. "Can we go find Valkyrie now?" He asked.

"Of course." Skulduggery's voice smiled.

"You coming?" Fletcher called to China. She looked up, and glanced at Skulduggery.

"Defenetly not." Skulduggery's voice was NOT smiling now.

A slow smile spread across China's face. "But Fletcher, you wouldn't _leave_ me here, would you?"

Fletcher hesitated. Skulduggery made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. Fletcher just looked confused. "Is there something going on between you two?" He asked.

Neither answered.

"Uhhh. . . .I'm kinda having a little emergency here." Finbar called weakly from the floor. "My eyes are still bleeding."

Fletcher just looked at him. "Who are you, again?"

"I'm the man that was slapped and threatened with a gun while his eyes were bleeding."

Skulduggery sighed. "Fine. Come on, you over spoiled little brat with a perfectly capable car outside. We have to drop Finbar off at the Sanctuary, then we're off to get Valkyrie."

China approached warily, placing a hand on the shoulder farthest from the one Skulduggery was near. Fletcher seemed to like her hand on him a little too much. Skulduggery bent down and picked up Finbar, throwing him over his shoulder with a groan.

"You reminded me of that other bloke just then, while you were interrogating me, you know." Finbar muttered sleepily.

"And who is that?" Skulduggery asked, placing a hand on Fletcher's shoulder.

"Solomon. Solomon Wreath." Finbar yawned. Skulduggery remained silent.

They teleported, and they were in the medical bay, Clarebelle and Ghastly and Ravel and Tipstaff all there. Skulduggery laid Finbar down on the ground, a little less than gently, and straightened up as Clarabelle stepped forward and began wiping the blood out of his eyes with a tissue. She pulled a band aid covered in rainbow smily faces out of the pocket of her lab coat and carefully pulled the wrapper off it, placeing it over one of Finbar's bloody eyes.

"All better." She smiled.

Skulduggery walked off a few paces from the group, still and quiet. He observed them talking and chatting, asking what had happened,and then when he thought no one else could hear him, he whispered, almost without thinking, "Whatever has to be done."

And of course, that is when the daemon struck.


	6. The Attack

It came through the cracks and crevices of the the building, a rotten, slinking, creeping smoke that burned sulfur red and sucked out all the light in the room. Everything was dark and confusion, and a scream rang out in the darkness. Probably Fletcher. But then Skulduggery clicked his fingers and called forth light, and the horror of the room was revealed.

Blood. That was the first thing one noticed in the room. On Finbar, and Ravel, because they were the first dead. Blood and meat and messy bits were shredded in deep claw marks in their corpses.

And then there was Grimalkin.

Imagine the smell of rotting meat and animal corpses. Bloody nails screeching down a chalkboard and a thousand dieing screams. Cold fire and burning ice. Now imagine that your eyes could experience these sensations. If you multiplied that times the biggest number you could think of, you might come close to what it was like to look at Gimalkin when he was freakin **pissed off.**

The firelight created a particularly fierce red glow that danced and played around in the insubstantial smoke that his mass was made of. He wasn't quite what a Faceless one looked like, not really. But there was just something not right about the planes and angles of his figure, something that suggested a creature of impossibility, similar to the old Gods.

And It came straight for Skulduggery.

Smoke rushed at him, and when it hit him it was like a physical blow, despite it's lack of substance. Skulduggery went flying and the flame went out, plunging the room back into darkness. There was the sound of a struggle, a bang and a flash as Skulduggery fired his gun, and a loud thump. Someone clicked their fingers, and light flooded back into the room. Gimalkin was a column of twisting, writhing miasma that flowed down to the floor and spread out across the room, hiding the corpses for now. He held Skulduggery pinned to the wall by one long, long limb that was much too big to come from anything that should have been able to fit in that room.

Ghastly stood slowly, flame in one hand, clutching his side with the other. He staggered, but stayed upright, and looked around. Fletcher was gone, China was down, unmoving, and Tipstaff was huddled in the corner. Clarabelle just stood in the middle of the room, checking things off her clipboard and ignoring everything else, and Ravel and Finbar were dead. Things were looking grim.

A wet muzzle with sharp teeth formed it's self out of the smoke and drifted to Skulduggery's ear, moving and whispering things Ghastly couldn't hear, and it's four black cat eyes rippled and moved, not quite in time with it's other visible appendages. Ghastly stepped forward and flexed his palm, and the air rippled and moved in a fierce wind, but although the smoke twisted and blew back in great waves, it somehow managed to conceal the shapes and limbs of Grimalkin. The Daemon turned and observed the mortal that challenged him with something approaching contempt. The limb that held Skulduggery aloft dissolved back into the mist, and he fell to the floor with a thump. He didn't get up.

Grimalkin came at him, knowing there was no escape. Creeping, drifting, he slunk along the floor until he came before Ghastly, and then all his essence gathered its self up in one towering column, his black eyes boring into him. He was a great and terrible sight to behold.

"You will _burn,_ fool." He hissed.

Ghastly stood calm and straight. He smiled. "Not if you burn first." He thrust his hand into the cloud that was Grimalkin, and light disappeared as the flame sank into his essence. Grimalkin convulsed and twisted away, into the ceiling. He grew a human mouth to scream with, and arms that began tearing strips of burning mist away from his body, and tentacles that wriggled and whipped around wildly.

But his screams were drowned out by Ghastly's.

Where his skin had touched the Daemon's form, it burned away like acid, leaving flesh and mussels exposed, and little flashes of bone. He clutched his hand to his side and dropped to his knees, still howling in anguish. The Daemon grew out and up, the movement of the smoke that concealed him now writhing like worms. It's eyes narrowed in furry.

And then the Nye came.

It stepped into the room and there was a smile on it's torn and threaded lips, a scalpel in his hands. "Hello Beasty." He said.

The Daemon turned it"s eyes to the Nye, and they widened in surprise. It stilled. "You. Old One."

"I'm old? I'm old? How long have you been loitering around this rock? A million, two million years? And you think I'm old?"

Grimalkin narrowed his eyes. He gathered himself up and rolled and broiled in fury. "I will get you, Old One, and your little assistant, too."

"Oooooo! Wicked witch of the west. I'm scared." Grimalkin hissed and flew twords the Nye. Nye smiled and jumped-

And disappeared into rolling mist.


End file.
